PICKLES: BUSH FIRST PREZ TO FUND STEM CELL RESEARCH??!??

[complain jane]

WTF??!!!

[Cha]

1. What's their fucking fundies gonna

SAY?

[aquart]

2. What breathtaking gall.

I stand in awe.

[bobroberts]

3. true...just limited lines that could be used with Fed $$ eom

[dennis4868]

5. NOT TRUE

FROM MEDIA MATTERS.ORG

Krauthammer echoed misleading Bush administration claim on stem cells

Syndicated Washington Post columnist and FOX News Channel contributor Charles Krauthammer falsely claimed that "up until this administration, there was a ban" on federal funding for stem cell research. "The president, he broke the ban," Krauthammer said on the August 12 edition of FOX News Channel's Special Report with Brit Hume, adding that "he said that he will support with the federal tax dollars some stem-cell research." Krauthammer's comments expanded upon First Lady Laura Bush's recent claim that President George W. Bush was the first president ever to fund stem cell research.

The truth is that Bush's stem cell policy replaced a less restrictive set of rules issued by the Clinton administration, though those rules had yet to take effect. On August 10, 2001, the day after Bush's nationally-televised speech announcing his new stem cell policy, The Washington Post explained that "the new policy will replace guidelines issued by the National Institutes of Health a year ago under the Clinton administration that would have allowed the first federal subsidies of human embryo cell research." More broadly, the "ban" that Krauthammer referred to did not target stem cell research specifically. Rather, in each year since 1996, Congress has passed a general ban on research in which human embryos are damaged or destroyed. But scientists realized the potential of stem cell research only in the late 1990s; Clinton's 2000 guidelines were a response to this newly-emerging field of research, as The Washington Post explained on August 24, 2000.

Krauthammer also blasted "Democrats" for "arguing that anybody who draws any line whatsoever, who doesn't give a blank check to all kinds of stem-cell research, including cloning research, is against the science or a prisoner of primitive religion." But, in fact, the Kerry campaign has offered a stem cell proposal that includes significant restrictions on federally-funded research, as Washington Post reporter Ceci Connolly pointed out during the panel with Krauthammer. In an August 9, 2004 speech, Senator John Kerry's running mate, Senator John Edwards, gave a speech laying out a detailed stem cell proposal in which he pledged to "put in place strict ethical standards for those conducting stem cell research," according to a campaign press release. An August 10 Washington Post article on Edwards's speech noted that the stem cell proposal "closely resembles the framework that the Clinton administration devised in its final two years but never put into effect" and summarized several of the ethical restrictions:

Scientists would be able to use federal funds to isolate and study stem cells from fertility clinic embryos no longer wanted by parents -- embryos, Edwards said, "that would otherwise be discarded or frozen indefinitely." Consent would be required of the parents. And proposed experiments would have to pass muster with an ethics committee at the academic or research institution where the work would be done.

MORE HERE...http://mediamatters.org/items/printable/200408130009

[bobroberts]

7. thank you eom

[Sparky McGruff]

6. That's the biggest load of horseshit...

"limited the lines" to ones that don't work. Set up the MOST RESTRICTIVE REGULATIONS that have EVER BEEN WRITTEN that prevent research in the US on stem cells EVEN WITH PRIVATE MONEY. Bush regulations were designed to prevent further work on stem cell research, in a manner that would confuse the issue and prevent political blow-back.

Horseshit. Blatant lies. Spin. That's all it is.

What it ISN'T is supporting scientific research. The Bush administration has done more to destroy research in four years than I could have ever imagined. They change scientific reports for political reasons, they shuffle research funding from medical research to the defense department, and they set up this BS charade about stem cell research. They are dishonest, duplicitous, and outright fraudulent. But, I've come to expect no less from George W. Bush.

Sparky McGruff, Ph. D.
Research Scientist

[Norquist Nemesis]

4. Then Laura Bush just bald faced LIED!!!!

http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/9901/19/stem.cell.research/

U.S. government to fund controversial stem cell research


January 19, 1999
Web posted at: 9:39 p.m. EST (0239 GMT)

<snip>

Strong opposition from critics

Abortion opponents immediately decried the decision.

"Today's announcement ... is the latest step by the Clinton administration to treat human beings as property to be manipulated and destroyed," said Rep. Chris Smith, R-New Jersey.

NIH money will allow researchers to "experiment with cells obtained from human beings ruthlessly killed in the first weeks of life," said Smith. The congressman didn't say whether he would challenge the NIH's plans.

The NIH decision means the federal government "will not fund the act of destruction itself, but will reward those who destroy embryos by paying them to develop the cells and tissues they have obtained by destructive means," said Richard Doerflinger of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops.

<snip>